]]>As a follow up to my guide on choosing a handgun for new shooters, I made a video covering the flip side of the issue. What happens when we try to get by with a handgun that’s less than ideal? Sometimes we can find a way to make it work, but inexperienced shooters often struggle. Bottom line — using a sub-optimal gun is no fun, and when shooting isn’t fun, we’re less motivated to get better. Watch the video for details, or skip down to the transcript below.

A couple of weeks ago, I gave some guidelines for choosing a handgun for self-defense and I recommended a few specific models that I think would cover the needs of most people who are new to shooting. That list wasn’t intended to be exhaustive. There are a ton of other suitable handguns out there. But there are also a lot of really bad ones and today I want to talk about the potential consequences of choosing the wrong handgun. I think this is relevant for less experienced shooters, but also for those of you who are going to end up helping out friends and family members who are trying to pick out their first gun.

Any handgun could be the wrong choice if it’s not a good fit for the shooter and their specific situation. And some handguns are just objectively terrible because they’re either poorly designed or poorly made. In either case, there is a valid argument to be made that we in the shooting community place way too much emphasis on gear selection. And that’s probably true. So I’m not going to try to tell you that you will be killed in the streets if you choose a gun that’s not on my approved list.

In reality, people manage to defend themselves all the time with crappy guns. The type of gun we have with us at the time of a violent attack is not likely to be the primary deciding factor in whether we survive that encounter. At the same time, there are some limitations to that cliché analogy, “It’s the Indian, not the arrow.” The Indian didn’t learn how to shoot using a broken bow and crooked arrows.

I think it’s important that people start out with good equipment whenever possible. The guns you choose for self-defense and the guns you practice with — particularly for inexperienced or untrained shooters — can have a huge impact on how you develop as a shooter, and whether you even decide to keep trying at all. Choosing your handgun wisely can make it very easy to develop some basic self-defense skills. But trying to power through with a gun that is less than ideal can lead to unnecessary roadblocks to improvement and can even negatively influence your mindset toward self-defense in general.

For example, one of the most common mistakes people make when they’re picking out a self-defense pistol is to insist on a gun that is too small for its caliber. This could be a magnum snub nose revolver or a pocket .380, but lately, I see it most often with sub-compact polymer .40 and .45 caliber pistols. These are some of the most miserable little guns out there, but unskilled shooters get suckered into buying them all the time — usually men who believe Newton’s third law of motion doesn’t apply to them. Almost without fail, these guys end up struggling to achieve anything close to competent shooting. Compared to their 9mm counterparts, the larger caliber subcompacts are really difficult to control. They are usually uncomfortable to shoot for more than a couple of magazines at a time and the excessive recoil makes it really easy to develop a bad flinching habit. Large calibers should be for large handguns.

Another common mistake is to overlook hand size when choosing a handgun. And I don’t just mean whether it “feels comfortable” in your hand at the gun store. You need to be able to reach the trigger with your index finger without that finger touching the frame. If there’s a manual safety, that needs to be within reach of your thumb without shifting your grip. It should not be a strain on your fingers or your wrist to manipulate the pistol. If the gun doesn’t fit your hands, you’ll end up wasting a lot of training time trying to figure out how to modify your technique just to operate the gun. That’s training time that could have been devoted to fine tuning your skills if you had started with a gun that fit better.

One more example of a common mistake is choosing a gun based solely on price. I understand being on a tight budget and having some very real financial limitations. If that’s your situation, obviously, you do the best you can within your budget. But a lot of people who can afford a decent gun just refuse to believe that a $400-500 pistol could possibly be better than a $250 pistol. I’m not saying there aren’t any decent low cost guns out there, or that expensive guns are always better. But usually, the companies that offer the cheapest handguns are cutting corners on quality. On average, cheap handguns malfunction more often at the range and under actual fighting conditions than moderately priced guns. Maybe that budget pistol will work when you actually need it, but why would you want to take that chance if you can afford an extra $100 for a gun that’s statistically more likely to function?

Even if you make one of these mistakes when you buy your pistol, you will probably still end up with an adequate self-defense tool. But let’s consider some of the indirect consequences. An inexperienced shooter who buys a sub-par gun for self-defense can easily become discouraged by how difficult it is to consistently hit the target at the range.They can be turned off to shooting altogether because of a pistol with sharp recoil. Or they may be quickly frustrated by trying to figure out why their gun can’t make it through a full magazine without a malfunction.

Dealing with these issues when you’re trying to learn a new skill can have a powerful demoralizing effect. Shooters who have bad experiences early on are less likely to practice or seek out training. They are less likely to develop safe gun handling skills which makes them a liability every time they touch a firearm. If shooting their carry gun feels like a chore and they don’t ever make any serious improvement, they will probably either lack confidence that they will be able to use the gun successfully in self-defense, or they will overestimate their ability. Either way, they are in a poor position to make good decisions under stress about when and how to apply deadly force.

Ultimately, the gun itself is a small part of the self-defense equation. That said, I really believe that in a lot of cases, people buy the wrong gun before they understand what kind of gun they actually need and that has a domino effect that results in a lack of confidence and skill. Without those two things, I think it’s questionable whether they are any better off than before they bought the gun.

]]>Today we’re continuing our series on how the lawfully armed citizen can be more mentally prepared to survive violent encounters by understanding the OODA Loop. In the first installment, I discussed the basics of how the OODA Loop could be applied to the decision-making processes that occur in a hypothetical self-defense situation. Last week, I went into depth about the concept of situational awareness, which could also be understood as “Observe” — the first “O” in the OODA Loop. Observing one’s environment and looking for things that seem out of place is a good first step, but it’s only helpful if we have some idea of what to do with that information. That brings us to the second “O” in the OODA Loop — “Orient.”

The Orient step can be broken down into two main components. In this context, the first component is understanding the implication of relevant information that was gathered during the Observe step (e.g., the person who entered the convenience store is wearing a ski mask, and it’s July, making him more likely a robber). The second component is updating our current view of reality to incorporate that information (e.g., I am in a store that is likely about to be robbed). While this may sound like the simplest of the steps, there are hidden pitfalls as well as internal biases that work against us if we are not aware of them and take steps to counteract them.

Pre-Attack Indicators

The first component is addressed in real time. Recognizing something as relevant requires some level of expertise and ability to listen to our survival instincts, which hopefully you’ve honed after practicing your Observation skills. You are aware of what is normal and can ignore the normal activities around you. You can now focus your observation on abnormal activities. Learning pre-attack indicators is a good way to speed up your Orientation. If you Observe one or more pre-attack indicators you can Orient your perspective to the person displaying them as a likely threat. While a comprehensive list is beyond the scope of this article, common pre-attack indicators could be:

Lack of eye contact while speaking to you, especially if replaced with scanning the area

Assuming a fighting stance, such as dropping one leg back and balling the hands into fists, either raised or clenched at the side

Inappropriate closing of distance, particularly continuing to approach when told to stop

Staring at you while approaching

Attempting to flank you, particularly if in a group

Attempting to obscure the face, sometimes overtly with clothing but perhaps less obviously by ducking the head and/or covering the face with a hand or forearm

Prior threats have been made and conditions are met (particularly in domestic violence and workplace violence situations)

Overt verbal aggression, with or without criminal demands

By learning what constitutes a threat, we can more readily realize that a given action is a valid and reliable indicator of a possible impending attack and, therefore, Orient ourselves toward that possibility. However, there is another issue we must face before we can move to “Decide.”

Addressing Denial: Accept the Threat is real

The second component, which is updating our current view of reality, should be addressed prior to finding yourself in a life threatening situation. We must understand and accept that “it” could happen to us, with “it” being a violent crime, in this instance. We must work through the implications of this happening now rather than when a gun is pointed at us.

One of the pitfalls that keeps us from doing this is a cognitive bias often termed “Just World Bias”. In brief, Just World Bias is one of the methods our brains has to protect our self-esteem, to reduce worry in a chaotic world, and to increase our feelings of being in control (which is important in avoiding depression). This bias makes us believe the world is inherently fair, that bad things happen to bad people who deserve it., and that we, the good guys, won’t experience those bad things because we don’t deserve it. When something bad is happening, the dissonance causes us to do a few unhelpful things. One common response is our mind asks, “Why me?” and begins to look for some justification as to why the misfortune is falling on our head and not someone else’s. The second common response is denial, that this bad thing isn’t really occurring, and that there is some other explanation for it that protects our world view.

“If someone points a gun at us and states that he will shoot us if we don’t give him our wallets, we do not have the luxury of time to work through our denial.”

Obviously, neither of these is a helpful response if we are indeed in a bad situation that requires action on our part. If someone points a gun at us and states that he will shoot us if we don’t give up our wallets, we do not have the luxury of time to work through our denial. We must accept that we are actually being robbed so that we can move on to “Decide”. In Laurence Gonzalez’ excellent book Deep Survival, he notes that survivors of accidents and natural disasters begin their process of surviving whatever misfortune has befallen them via “perceive and believe.” As Gonzalez explains it, “If there is any denial, it is counterbalanced by a solid belief in the clear evidence of their senses. They immediately begin to recognize, acknowledge, and even accept the reality of their situation.”

Denial is incredibly powerful at immobilizing those who are unprepared and have not truly accepted the possibility of being victimized. I know a guy who was injured as a result of denial. The victim was walking on a trail in a public park when he was approached by two men in their late teens or early twenties. One of the suspects drew a pistol and demanded the victim’s wallet. The victim responded by asking if they were joking. To show him that he was serious, the robber shot the man in the thigh. It is not uncommon for victims to ask the robber questions regarding their motives, even if the robber has entered a store with a mask on, a weapon displayed, and passed a note demanding money. It is so common that many recovered robbery notes actually include the phrase “this is not a joke.”

Victims routinely express they were in denial at the time they were attacked. Along with asking if the person is serious, “I couldn’t believe it was happening to me” or “I was stunned” are common statements in victim interviews. The time to work through that surprise is now. Accept that you could be the target of random violence and work out the implications of that, realizing that you don’t have to do anything wrong or have “bad karma” to be selected as a victim. If you have been specifically threatened by someone who can credibly carry out that threat (without explaining it away as “he’s not really like that” or “she wouldn’t be that stupid), then face that possibility now. This is, after all, why you’ve elected to carry a weapon, is it not?

Orient In Real Time

We must continue to Orient ourselves as Observing gives us new data. Someone that was a threat who’s dropped their weapon and began to flee is no longer a threat. Failing to Orient to that new reality quickly enough can result in a legally and ethically questionable shooting. Remember that this is a constant loop, and we need to make decisions on current reality, not 5-seconds-ago reality. Orienting is a powerful tool to avoid trouble and, failing that, to deal with trouble in a legally and ethically justifiable manner through good decision making, which will be the topic of next week’s article on the “Decide” step of the OODA Loop.

]]>http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/beyond-awareness-recognizing-threat/feed/0What is Situational Awareness?http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/what-is-situational-awareness/
http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/what-is-situational-awareness/#respondWed, 30 Nov 2016 19:00:41 +0000http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/?p=5501The term “situational awareness” comes up frequently in the world of self-defense and shooting. It’s often regarded as the ultimate …

]]>The term “situational awareness” comes up frequently in the world of self-defense and shooting. It’s often regarded as the ultimate trump card of personal protection, as if nearly any violent encounter can be avoided as long as one’s situational awareness is adequate. Awareness may be a powerful tool, but seldom do you find anyone willing to provide a clear definition of what it actually means and how to realistically carry it out on a day to day basis.

What we typically call “situational awareness” could be considered the first step of a thought process known as the “OODA Loop.” Last week, I discussed the concept of the OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) Loop and how it can benefit the lawfully armed citizen. The first “O” is “Observation”, but what does that actually mean? I’ve asked many students in my defensive shooting classes what they think observation or “situational awareness” is, and answers have ranged from making eye contact with everyone they pass to constantly scanning their environment. Many of the strategies employed are ineffective or inefficient to the point they take up so much of your thought process you can’t carry on with routine activities such as eating a meal. As such, I’d like to delve into what an effective and efficient observation strategy looks like.

Awareness in Action

Imagine you are about to enter a dog park. There are roughly 30 dogs in the park. 28 of them are running around, chasing thrown toys, sniffing other dogs… normal dog things. One is asleep under a bench. One is growling, pacing back and forth with the fur on its back raised, and snapping its teeth together. Do you pay equal attention to all 30 dogs? Instinctively, you know that is a foolish response because you cannot effectively monitor all 30 dogs while devoting enough attention to the threat. You already know which dog is dangerous.

You’ve done this based on the fact that the growling dog is behaving differently than the normal, non-threatening dog. His behavior is consistent with your memories (either gained firsthand or learned vicariously from someone else) of a potentially dangerous dog, and probably some primal response to the sight of an animal attempting to look bigger and displaying its teeth. Our goal with observation — or situational awareness — is to do the same with human threats; to not only see a group but to identify the most likely threats and focus our attention there until a determination of threat/no-threat can be made.

Step one is to start scanning. To state the obvious, we must be aware of a person before we can begin to decide if they are a threat or not. The term “head on a swivel” is often used in law enforcement and the military to mean actively looking around you, scanning the environment. This is impossible to do if you are absorbed in a smartphone, lost in your own thoughts, etc. With practice, it becomes a natural response to continuously scan, but when you first start to do so, you will have to consciously force yourself to do it.

Look for What Doesn’t Belong

Now that we are scanning, what are we looking for? One of the pitfalls is trying to see everything, pay conscious attention to everyone, etc. The human brain simply doesn’t have the capacity for that. We need to quickly make decisions on whether something can be safely skimmed over or needs further attention, like at the hypothetical dog park. One of our primary tools for this is to ask, “is that person behaving normally for the situation and environment at this time?” The person behaving normally can be dismissed as one of the sniffing, running, playing dogs. We can continue to observe as part of our scan to see if anything changes, but until then they are part of the background. What we are scanning for is the abnormal stuff. This can range from blatant (wearing a ski mask walking into a gas station in July) to subtle (glancing over a shoulder while asking for a cigarette lighter).

The good news is your subconscious already holds a powerful database of what constitutes normal non-threatening behavior. There are ways to maximize the effectiveness of that database. Simply listening to your subconscious, i.e. “trust your gut”, when someone feels “off” or dangerous but you can’t quite put your finger on why. You can also bring the observations into the conscious mind so you can articulate the danger to yourself or others and reinforce the reality of the threat to yourself to break the pressure of maintaining social norms and overcome denial.

Training Your Brain

An exercise you can do to build this skill is to start really paying attention to one person a day doing a mundane activity. Pay close attention to what the person is doing and not doing. Make an effort to really catalog things like where their eyes go, what their hands and feet do, how they orient their body, the tone of their voice, etc.

One demonstration I like to use is the approach for a cigarette lighter. Criminals need a socially acceptable reason to approach you and will often give a false reason for doing so, such as asking for a light. I will have a student who smokes give me their lighter and then ask them to imagine all of the things they like about smoking. I have them visualize the sensation of smoking and how much each step gives them pleasure. Then, I ask them if they have a lighter. Of course they don’t, since they already gave it to me. I then tell them to ask for me for a light. Invariably the student does a few of the same things as every other student in that position. He approaches me but stops about a double arm’s length away. He extends the cigarette toward me slightly, and then asks for a light while looking me in the face. He is not acting naturally, he’s behaving naturally.

Compare that to surveillance footage of a robber approaching someone with the ruse of asking for a light. They scan their surroundings, they get too close, they don’t display the cigarette, etc. Once you are an expert on what “normal” looks like, you will notice the different acts (scanning the environment and not displaying the cigarette) which will enable you to quickly transition to the next step in the OODA loop,“Orient”, as you’ve noted a potential threat.

So, consciously look for and then pay attention to someone pumping gas. The following day, do the same with someone waiting for the bus or walking through a parking lot talking on a cell phone. Not only will you be working on your observation skills by looking for that specific activity, but you will be building a catalog of what normal looks like for your environment. That catalog may help you avoid a confrontation completely when you see a guy acting like he’s pumping gas but really waiting for someone to carjack or the guy who looks like he’s talking on a cell phone but is actually scouting for a purse grab.

Also note that you may need to repeat the process if you travel to learn the normal behavior for your new area. When I traveled to a country where personal space during conversations was much closer than I was used to as an American, I experienced many false alerts to abnormal behavior until I observed and adjusted to the fact “close talkers” were the norm for that country. That is the beauty of this system, though. It can apply to any culture and any country once you’ve established the baseline. So, go out and get that baseline on board.

]]>http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/what-is-situational-awareness/feed/0Handgun Recommendations for New Shootershttp://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/handgun-recommendations-new-shooters/
http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/handgun-recommendations-new-shooters/#commentsThu, 24 Nov 2016 16:09:44 +0000http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/?p=5475Shopping for a defensive handgun can be overwhelming, especially for shooters without much experience. How do you even know what …

]]>Shopping for a defensive handgun can be overwhelming, especially for shooters without much experience. How do you even know what to look for? A common suggestion is to go with a pistol that “feels good in your hands,” but that advice is next to useless when the shooter in question doesn’t know what a gun feels like when it fits correctly. Allowing one’s budget to be the primary guiding factor in selecting a handgun is another frequent mistake, and often results in first-time gun buyers in possession of a poor quality ill-fitting pistol that frustrates their later efforts at learning how to shoot competently. In order to make a good decision, we need some more nuanced criteria to work with.

The video below is not intended as a comprehensive guide to everything you might need to know before buying a handgun for self-defense. In fact, it might leave you with more questions than answers. But my hope is that you’ll walk away with the right questions so that you’ll have a better idea of how to research and make an informed decision.

I’ve provided some general guidelines for choosing a handgun and also suggested a few specific models that cover a variety of handgun types and sizes. Again, it’s not a comprehensive list, but should serve as a good starting point. The transcript of the video can be found below, along with additional comments and links to other articles elaborating on some of the topics mentioned, as well as reviews of several of the handguns suggested.

One of the questions I get asked most often is what handgun I would recommend for self-defense in the home or for concealed carry. Usually this question comes from a prospective first-time gun buyer, or maybe from someone who is trying to help a friend or family member buy their first gun. This is always a difficult question, first of all, because there are no easy one-size-fits-all solutions. The gun has to match the person’s size and physical ability, their lifestyle, and their wardrobe, so there’s a lot to consider. The more challenging part of answering this question is trying to communicate in one short conversation or email the fact that the choice of handgun is really just a small part of being prepared to defend yourself.

So before doing anything else, I typically suggest people read the book “Fighting Smarter” by Tom Givens. I mentioned this one in the video a couple of weeks ago. It’s a pretty thorough introduction to everything you need to know about surviving violent encounters, including how to choose a handgun. And then following that, if you get some training from a qualified self-defense shooting instructor, you’ll have a much better idea of what kind of handgun might work for you.

So that’s my first recommendation: read the book, get some training. If you still want to know what I think, I can give you some general suggestions for what to look for in a defensive handgun and then I’ll offer a few specific recommendations.

What to Look for in a Handgun

1. Reliability

Ken Hackathorn is a phenomenal handgun instructor and one of the pioneers of the private self-defense training industry and I’ve always liked how he described his requirements for a self-defense handgun. The first criteria is reliability. The second is reliability. The third is… reliability. Your gun has to work every time you press the trigger. Each individual gun is a little different, but there are certain models and manufacturers that are more prone to design flaws and quality control problems than others. So choose carefully and do your research.

2. Shootability

The next thing to look for is an attribute we’ll call shootability. What I mean by that is the gun needs to fit you and you need to be able to control it. Shooting ability is a learned skill, but if your finger doesn’t reach the trigger or if the grip is too wide for your hands or if the gun has excessive recoil, you’re going to have a tough time learning the proper shooting technique. I’ve elaborated on this topic in the past, outlining some common pitfalls when looking for a handgun that fits properly.

Generally speaking, the smaller the gun is in overall size, the more difficult it is to control and shoot accurately. The larger the caliber, the harder it is to shoot well. So a full size, medium caliber gun like a 9mm is usually ideal from a standpoint of shootability, but if we’re going to carry the gun, it also has to be comfortable and concealable.

3. Comfort and Concealment

Most people are able to carry a slightly larger gun than they initially think they can. It’s usually a matter of finding the right holster and carry method and then just getting used to it. But every person’s situation is different and if you’re going to carry the gun, you should really carry it all the time. So carry as big a gun as you possibly can, but be realistic and don’t buy a gun that’s so big you know you’re never going to actually even attempt to carry it.

4. Effective Caliber and Capacity

Finally, the gun has to be effective — it has to be capable of reliably stopping a determined violent attacker. That’s mostly going to depend on the person pulling the trigger, but to a lesser extent, effectiveness is a function of the ammunition the gun fires and it’s ammo capacity.

We could argue all day about which caliber is best, but I think for 80-90% of gun owners, a 9mm semi-auto or a .38 special revolver is going to work pretty well. In particular, I suggest Federal HST or Speer Gold Dot ammo for self-defense. There are other good choices, but those are a couple of the more popular loads that have historically worked very well.

As far as ammo capacity, more is better… at least to a point. There are very few situations that would call for a 20 round magazine, but a gun with, let’s say 8 shots can help you solve some problems where a gun with only 5 shots would be inadequate.

So you want a gun that’s chambered in as big a caliber as possible up to 9mm, with as much ammo capacity as possible while still being reliable, shootable, and practical for you to carry.

Defensive Handgun Recommendations

There are probably a lot of guns that would fit all of these criteria for you, and I can’t offer a comprehensive list of all of the possibilities, so I’ll just give you a few of my top recommendations. And I’ll start with some 9mm semi-automatics that could work for both home defense and concealed carry.

Semi-Automatics

1. Sig Sauer P250 Compact and Subcompact 9mm

The Sig P250 compact and subcompact are at the top of the list. They are reliable, affordable, and the design overall is just really user-friendly, especially for less experienced shooters. I think these guns are highly underrated, which means a lot of times you can find a really good deal on them. If you’re able to track one down, the .380 ACP version of the P250 Compact is an ideal handgun for shooters with diminished hand strength, which Tamara Keel wrote about for us in a previous article.

Sig Sauer P250 Compact

2. Glock 19 and 26

The compact Glock 19 is another good one along with the subcompact Glock 26. I personally don’t care for the ergonomics on these guns, but they’re some of the most popular pistols in the world, and they’re very reliable and there are endless ways to customize them to your liking.

Glock 19 Gen 4

3. Smith & Wesson M&P9 and M&P9c

The Smith & Wesson M&P full size and M&P Compact are similar to the Glocks, but I think they tend to fit people’s hands a little better. I carried and trained with an M&P9c for five years and I think the size is a great compromise between shootability and concealability. All M&Ps are also available with an optional external thumb safety. It’s a well-designed safety that’s easy to use, so if that’s a feature that’s important to you, the M&P is a good option.

Smith & Wesson M&P9 full size

4. Single Stack Options

If all of those seem too big for you to practically carry every day, you might consider a slimmer pistol with a single stack magazine. I like the Smith & Wesson M&P Shield, the Glock 43, and the Walther PPS, all in 9mm. These are going to have snappier recoil and will hold fewer rounds than the other guns I mentioned, but they’re still manageable if you put some work into it.

Walther PPS 9mm

If those still seem to big, you might be tempted to look at the really small pocket-size .380 pistols. I generally don’t recommend these guns if you can avoid them. .380 is just not as effective, and despite the smaller caliber, the micro-pistols are usually hard to shoot, and they are on average far less reliable than other semi-autos. The Glock 42 does seem to work a little better and it’s more shootable than the other small .380s, but it’s also a bit large for what you might call a pocket pistol.

Revolvers

1. Home Defense: Ruger GP100

If you’re interested in a revolver, for home defense I would suggest the Ruger GP100. It’s chambered in .357 magnum, but it can fire .38 special ammo, and that is what you should load it with. Smith & Wesson also makes some nice full size revolvers, but since the year 2000 nearly all of them have been equipped with an internal safety lock mechanism. These locks have been known to occasionally engage themselves while the gun is being fired, and that is a huge compromise of our reliability requirement for a defensive handgun, so I suggest you avoid those. Older Smith revolvers are fine, but any used revolver needs to be thoroughly looked over by a qualified gunsmith before you use it.

Ruger GP100 Match Champion

2. Concealed Carry: Ruger SP101 and S&W 640 Pro

For a concealed carry revolver, the Ruger SP101 is a good one. It’s heavy and large for a 5 shot gun, but it’s also very shootable and reliable, especially the Wiley Clapp edition that I reviewed last year. The Smith and Wesson 640 Pro is another really shootable but heavy carry revolver (and the subject of another review from my 2015 revolver series). It’s one of the few current production S&W revolvers that does not have the internal lock.

Smith & Wesson 640 Pro

3. Lightweight Concealed Carry: Ruger LCR

A polymer or lightweight alloy-framed revolver can be very challenging to shoot well, especially for an inexperienced shooter. That said, the light weight and snag-free profile makes them among the easiest guns to carry. For this category, take a look at the Ruger LCR. They make it in .38 special and .357 magnum. The .357 version is a few ounces heavier which is going to help out with recoil when you load it with .38 ammo. For either model, I suggest starting out with light recoiling ammo for both practice and self-defense like the lead wadcutters that I talked about last week.

Ruger LCR 357

There are plenty of other good options out there, but I think these are some of the most accessible for less experienced shooters. Keep in mind, if you try a handgun and it doesn’t work out for you, you can always sell it and try a different one. So just pick something, get some training, and carry it.

I’m always happy to answer questions when I can, so if you get stuck in your search for a handgun, let me know in the comments and I’ll do my best to help!

]]>http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/handgun-recommendations-new-shooters/feed/27Shooting is the Easy Part: What They Don’t Tell You About Gun Fightshttp://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/shooting-easy-part-dont-tell-gun-fights/
http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/shooting-easy-part-dont-tell-gun-fights/#commentsWed, 23 Nov 2016 16:51:23 +0000http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/?p=5285Editor’s Note: Today’s post comes from Spencer Blue, a writer with an extensive background in law enforcement, military, and training armed …

]]>Editor’s Note: Today’s post comes from Spencer Blue, a writer with an extensive background in law enforcement, military, and training armed civilians in firearms and the use of deadly force. He currently works as a detective with a major metropolitan police department the Midwest. You can read his full bio here. This post is the first in a series on decision making and the mental side of preparing for a violent encounter. Spencer brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table on this topic and we’re excited to share his thoughts with you guys here. -CB

We often go to the range, dry fire, take various shooting classes, and agonize over the right handgun/holster/ammunition set up in order to improve our technical skills and give ourselves the best chance of prevailing in a defensive shooting. However, the actual shooting is only a small part of the equation for success. While technical skill is certainly desirable, it’s often the simplest part of the task at hand once a modicum of gun handling and shooting skill is learned and practiced. Beyond pulling the trigger, the ability to observe relevant information, use that information to make plans, and then decide which of those plans to put into action are instrumental in a successful outcome. These abilities may help you avoid the shooting entirely, and failing that, to act in a manner that gives you the best odds of both surviving the fight and of doing so in a legally and ethically justifiable manner. This cycle is often referred to as the “OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) loop”, and I’d like to show you why it’s important to those who carry a weapon defensively to train for more than just the Act.

The concept originated within the US Air Force but is readily adaptable to the civilian carrying a firearm for personal protection. Any self-defense situation, including a gun fight, is likely to be a tense, uncertain, and a rapidly evolving situation that will require many travels through the “loop”. Do not think of this as a step by step process with a definite beginning and end. It is more of a tank tread, constantly rotating to pull you through your fight. Our goal is to get through our loop as quickly as possible while disrupting our opponent’s progress.

Scenario: Armed Robbery

Let’s take a look at a fairly common random crime scenario and then see how the OODA loop is adapted to our hypothetical armed citizen:

Consider a man closing his store for the day. He sets the alarm and locks his door. His conscious mind is occupied with thoughts of where he should stop to buy dinner on his way home as he walks to his car in the parking lot. It’s dark, but security lights illuminate the parking lot enough to see anyone approaching, at least as a silhouette. As he approaches his vehicle, he hears a man ask if he’s got a cigarette lighter.

Observe

At this point, we can say Observe is synonymous with “Situational Awareness”. You must be aware of the problem before you can take any further steps. Due to the store owner’s inattention, he is stuck in the first step of “Observe” until the man announces his presence by asking for a lighter.

The store owner turns toward the voice and sees a man standing within a few feet of him. He’s casually holding a knife at his side. Surprised at the sight of the knife, the store owner does not respond to the request for a lighter. The man then holds up the knife and demands the store owner’s wallet.

Orient

The store keeper is briefly stuck in the loop. He has Observed the man and is attempting to Orient in light of this new information. Orienting can be thought of as changing our world view to encompass the new information. We must accept the new reality as reality (instead of confronting the new information with denial), realize what the new information means so we can move on to Decide. We’ve all been stunned by new and surprising information, and, at that time, we were stuck in Orient.

The store owner realizes the man is a mugger and that he’s armed. The store owner briefly considers his options. He realizes he can comply and give up his wallet. He sees alternatives of attempting to flee or of drawing a concealed handgun in his waistband and resisting the robbery.

Decide

The store owner is now in Decide. He is rapidly creating plans, mentally simulating their outcomes, and then either accepting or rejecting the plan. In stressful and time-sensitive decision making such as this, he will rely heavily on his subconscious and will be looking for the first acceptable plan, not the absolute best plan.

The store owner decides his best course of action is to resist. He decides to initially feign compliance, then create a distraction, then access and draw his concealed handgun. He tells the man, “Ok, ok, I don’t want any trouble” and begins to reach for his wallet.

Act

The store owner is now in Act. He has successfully completed Decide with a plan that has an acceptable level of risk and likelihood of success for his own tolerances. However, this is not the end. Now he must go through the OODA loop again to evaluate his plan as it unfolds so that he can adapt to new information, altering the plan if required.

This store owner’s arm moves behind his body as though reaching for a wallet.

The store owner will now Observe the reaction of the mugger. What are his facial expressions and body language? Does he respond verbally to the movement? Does he advance or become more threatening with the knife?

The mugger stands his ground and waits, shifting his weight slightly from foot to foot.

The store owner Observes this and Orients to this information. He believes this indicates the mugger is not suspicious of his movement and believes he is complying. The mugger is planning to run, as he subconsciously moves his feet. He Decides to continue with his plan without alteration and begins to Act.

The shopkeeper establishes a grip on his pistol, looks over the mugger’s shoulder and shouts “Help! He’s trying to rob me!” as though a passerby was now in the parking lot. The mugger jerks, and looks over his own shoulder.

The store owner can now Observe that the mugger is distracted, Orient to the fact he is no longer under direct observation, Decide to move away from the mugger and draw his handgun as he moves, and then Act by putting that plan to work.

The store owner moves backward at a diagonal as he draws his firearm, points it at the mugger, and orders him to drop the knife. The mugger looks at the store owner, jerks back as he realizes his “victim” is now armed, turns and flees.

The store owner must once again Observe the mugger’s reaction. The mugger is fleeing. He Orients himself and realizes this means the mugger has abandoned the fight. He Decides to not fire at the fleeing mugger and to continue to Observe. He Acts by lowering his pistol and watching the mugger flee. The store owner will continue to do so until he is satisfied he is no longer under threat.

We’ve looked at this through the eyes of the store owner, but, of course, the mugger is doing the same thing. He must also constantly go through the OODA loop, select a victim with an acceptable risk to potential reward, evaluate how the robbery is going (is the victim compliant? Should I flee? Should I fight?), etc. If we can interrupt our opponent’s OODA loop so that he never gets to Act, we can maintain initiative and dictate the course of the fight. By distracting the mugger with an unexpected shout and the potential for a witness, our hypothetical shopkeeper was able to do just that.

Failure to Adapt

In real investigations, I often speak with victims who simply could not get through the OODA loop quickly enough to mount an effective defense. They generally suffered from one or all of the following:

They did not see trouble coming quickly enough to avoid it or to begin to formulate a plan to deal with it (Observe).

When confronted, they entered denial (this isn’t happening to me, he’s just joking, or freezing) and did not adapt their thought processes to the reality now confronting them (Orient).

They had never considered what they would do if confronted with a violent criminal, had minimal or no training, and could not make an acceptable plan as quickly as events unfolded (Decide).

They defaulted to compliance and were victimized, or they formulated a plan too late, or they put the plan into action too late to effect their victimization. (Act)

We must be able to transition from step to step and from loop to loop quickly and smoothly if we wish to prevail in self-defense. In future articles, we will go into each step in more detail looking at things like how to prepare and hone our skills related to that step, how to disrupt our opponent’s transition from that step, and the unique dangers faced while stuck in a particular step.

]]>http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/shooting-easy-part-dont-tell-gun-fights/feed/5Wadcutter Ammo for Self-Defensehttp://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/wadcutter-ammo-self-defense/
http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/wadcutter-ammo-self-defense/#commentsThu, 10 Nov 2016 21:26:20 +0000http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/?p=5465There are dozens of modern .38 special and .357 magnum self-defense loads available that have been specifically designed with the …

]]>There are dozens of modern .38 special and .357 magnum self-defense loads available that have been specifically designed with the snub nose revolver in mind. With all of those choices, it may be difficult to believe that a bullet as simple as the lead wadcutter may be the most effective round under some circumstances. The video below has the details, or you can just read the transcript…

Right now, along with some of the other guys from the Lucky Gunner team, I am preparing for another round of our self-defense ammo ballistic gelatin testing. This time, we’re going to be testing a few dozen .38 special and .357 magnum loads and we’re planning to have those results ready for you guys to see early next year. While we’re doing the actual testing over the next few weeks, we might not be able to put out as many videos and blog posts and we would like. So I apologize in advance if we’re a little light on content, but we’ve got some really interesting stuff in the works and it is definitely going to be worth the wait.

In the meantime, today I want to give a little background on just one of the rounds that we’re going to be testing and that is the lead wadcutter, also called a full wadcutter. A couple of years ago, I did a short video about what a wadcutter bullet is, but I didn’t offer much detail on using the wadcutter as a self-defense round.

If you didn’t catch that earlier video, a wadcutter is a roughly cylinder-shaped bullet that is designed to be used in revolvers. Wadcutters are seated in the case so that the face of the bullet is flush with the case mouth. These were originally intended for bullseye type competition because the wadcutters leave a clean, round hole in a paper targets making them easier to score. They are also typically loaded to travel at relatively low velocities, so they have very little recoil compared to just about any other centerfire handgun load.

So, why anyone would want to use a non-expanding, slow-moving bullet for self-defense? Well, the low recoil is usually what attracts people to that option. A small alloy-framed snub nose might be painful for somebody to shoot with conventional self-defense ammo, but with wadcutters, they can become very manageable. Even more experienced shooters using a steel frame revolver will typically find that they can get accurate follow-up shots much quicker with wadcutters than with most other loads.

Wadcutters also have the potential for surprisingly effective wound ballistics out of a small revolver compared to conventional self-defense ammo. Most hollow-points will only expand if they get up to a certain velocity, and sometimes the little 2-inch snubby barrels don’t launch those bullets fast enough to reach that velocity. When a hollow point fails to expand in soft tissue, it basically acts like a round nose or full metal jacket. It makes a hole, but it kind of pushes its way through tissue like the hull of a boat moving through the water. It doesn’t create a large wound channel and it just isn’t as effective at stopping threats when it doesn’t expand.

A wadcutter, on the other hand, because of the flat front and hard right angle, it does to soft tissue kind of what it does to paper — it punches a sharp hole that’s a lot more disruptive than a round nose. Even though the wadcutter doesn’t actually expand, it tends to penetrate soft tissue very reliably. Penetration is really the most important thing we want to see in a good self-defense round, so when you combine that with light recoil, a .38 special wadcutter is actually a pretty formidable self-defense round.

The catch is that most snub nose revolvers have fixed sights and sometimes wadcutters are going to hit a few inches higher or lower than what the sights are regulated for. Also, thanks to their shape, it’s difficult to reload with wadcutters in any kind of hurry. A lot of guys that load their carry gun with wadcutters will use something different for their reload, like a speed strip with Gold Dots, for example.

Most major ammo manufacturers produce some kind of 148 grain .38 special wadcutter load but they can have pretty drastically different velocities from one brand to the next. I did some chronograph testing with wadcutters from six different ammo makers and took the average velocity of 10 shots fired from a 2-inch barreled revolver.

The Winchester load was the fastest at a little over 700 feet per second. The Federal, Remington, and Magtech loads were within 50 feet per second of that and then there’s a big jump down to the Sellier and Bellot load at close to 600 and then another massive decrease to 530 for the Fiocchi load. So there’s nearly a 180 foot per second spread between these six loads — that’s a 25% decrease in velocity from the fastest load to the slowest.

All of these loads still have very mild recoil, but if I was choosing one for self-defense, I would want one of the faster loads out of this batch just to make sure I get that penetration we’re looking for. The Winchester, Federal, or Remington would all be good choices. The Magtech velocity is also decent, but Magtech ammo tends to have tough primers which can lead to light primer strikes in some revolvers. You can find much higher velocity wadcutter loads from some of the smaller boutique ammo companies, but you start running into diminishing returns with those. When you get up to numbers like 850 feet per second with a wadcutter, there’s no real increase in performance over the more standard loads but you do end up with snappier recoil, so it’s not really worth the trade-off.

We’re going to be using the Winchester wadcutter in our gelatin tests, so we’ll see how that compares to the jacketed hollow-point loads. But even if some of those hollow points expand out of a 2-inch barrel, none of them are going to be as easy to shoot as the wadcutter, so for recoil sensitive shooters and super lightweight revolvers, do not overlook the humble lead wadcutter load.

]]>http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/wadcutter-ammo-self-defense/feed/27Self-Defense Training on a Budgethttp://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/self-defense-training-budget/
http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/self-defense-training-budget/#commentsThu, 27 Oct 2016 22:34:17 +0000http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/?p=5458Of all of the potential barriers preventing people from seeking out quality self-defense training, one of the biggest is the …

]]>Of all of the potential barriers preventing people from seeking out quality self-defense training, one of the biggest is the financial cost. At least, that’s what you guys made clear after I posted a video about the importance of self-defense training a few weeks ago. So today’s video offers a few tips to learn how to be better prepared to use your gun for self-protection without spending a fortune.

Full transcript below:

A few weeks ago, I did a video about the importance of self-defense training. The feedback I got from a lot of you guys was that you would like to get some training, but it just costs too much. And I totally understand that. A typical self-defense class is a few hundred bucks, plus ammo, plus travel expenses if the class is out of town, and I know not everybody can afford that, even if it’s just once every few years. I don’t think that a lack of disposable income should disqualify you from being able to be better prepared to use your gun as a life saving tool. So today I’m going to talk about a couple of ways to approach training even if you don’t have a ton of extra cash laying around.

First, I should make an important distinction. There is a big difference between not training because you truly can’t afford it and not training because you don’t think it’s worth the money. If you’re in the latter camp, I don’t know if there’s much I can say to convince you otherwise. Most instructors aren’t getting rich off of teaching classes… I think the prices most of them are asking are fair. But a lot of people look at the cost and think, “hey, I could buy another gun for that.” I understand that temptation, but I promise, getting some quality training is going to be far more valuable and rewarding in the long run and it’s definitely going to make you better prepared than adding another gun to your collection. Even if you’re just shooting primarily as a hobby, shooting is a lot more fun when you’re good at it. So, when someone tells me they have a handful of pistols, but they’ve never had any training, that usually means they can afford training, they would just rather have more toys to put in the safe.

Now, if going to a good shooting class is really financially out of reach for you, there are some alternatives. One of the best is to get some private lessons. There is still a cost involved, but it’s going to be a lot less than most classes. An hour or two with a qualified shooting instructor might cost you $100 or so and you’ll probably go through 100 rounds, but having all of that individual attention can take you a long way. If you supplement that with some good reading material and dry practice, you can probably get the majority of the benefit of a one or two day class.

Speaking of dry practice, that is another low cost way to work on your shooting skills. It doesn’t do much good if you don’t have some kind of baseline training to show you how to do everything correctly, but once you have a grasp of the fundamentals, dry practice can help you get the mechanics of shooting and gun handling programmed into your brain’s subconscious. Justin Carroll recently wrote a couple of really good articles about how to dry practice effectively that we have posted on our blog, so be sure to check that out if you want to know more.

Shooting is an important component of self-defense, but there’s really a lot more you need to know than just how to pull a trigger. Understanding criminal behavior and how use observation and awareness to your advantage are just as important. There are also legal aspects of self-defense you need to be familiar with, and plenty of other topics. Outside of training with someone in-person, the best single low-cost resource I have found that covers most of this stuff is the book “Fighting Smarter: A Practical Guide for Surviving Violent Confrontation” by Tom Givens. It is a really excellent, comprehensive overview of just about everything the average person needs to know on the topic of self-defense.

If you’re interested in expanding that knowledge on an ongoing basis for free, there are lots of other books and videos and resources available, but for today I’ll just mention a couple of my favorite podcasts. There’s Ballistic Radio hosted by John Johnston, which you can download or listen to live on Sunday nights and there’s also the American Warrior Show with Mike Seeklander. These shows feature interviews with guests from the self-defense training industry and the full archives of both of them are available to download for free. John and Mike both do an excellent job of tracking down some of the most knowledgeable people in the world on topics that are relevant to shooting and self-defense. I highly recommend both of them.

There’s really no true substitute for learning how to use your firearm defensively in person from a qualified instructor, but if you can’t do that, there are more options and resources available today than there ever have been. There’s also more bad information out there than ever, so be picky about who you listen to, but there’s no reason you can’t be reasonably well-prepared to defend yourself without going broke.

]]>http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/self-defense-training-budget/feed/2Defending Your Life with a Shieldhttp://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/defending-life-shield/
http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/defending-life-shield/#commentsWed, 26 Oct 2016 19:00:30 +0000http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/?p=5445Editor’s Note: The following article comes from Kevin Creighton. Kevin has been a longtime shooter and outspoken supporter of the second …

]]>Editor’s Note: The following article comes from Kevin Creighton. Kevin has been a longtime shooter and outspoken supporter of the second amendment but it wasn’t until the last few years that he got serious about learning more about shooting for the purpose of self-defense. I believe the 9mm Smith & Wesson M&P Shield that Kevin discusses in this article is one of the better single-stack subcompact pistols available right now, and while I wouldn’t necessarily recommend all of the same accessories Kevin mentions here, he has certainly done his homework, and I think there is much the average gun owner can learn from his approach to choosing his everyday carry gear. You can find out more about Kevin and his other writings here. -CB

I realized the advantages of small 9mm pistols quite early in my concealed carry journey. In fact, the first gun I bought specifically to carry concealed while outside of the house was a subcompact SCCY CPX-1. While the small size and light weight of that gun served me well, I eventually reached the point where I couldn’t find the accessories and upgrades I wanted because they were not available for the SCCY, so I switched over to carrying a Smith and Wesson Shield in 9mm.

As Chris said in his earlier article on the Glock 43, the primary reason to carry a single stack 9mm is its ease of carry and concealability. The Shield predates the Glock by a few years, and it has benefited from a number of accessories from third-party manufacturers that improve its ease of use. I bought my Shield as an everyday carry gun, and it has served in that role very well these past few years.

One of the first things I noticed about the Shield was its trigger. Due to the striker-fired action, the stock trigger on the Shield is quite good, especially in comparison to similar-sized double-action only guns such as the Ruger LC9 and Kel-Tec P11. To improve the Shield’s trigger pull even more, I installed an Apex Tactical Duty/Carry Trigger Enhancement kit. The kit was easy to install in under an hour with the tools I had around the house, and it dramatically improved the reset, travel, and break of the trigger, and it also dropped the amount of effort needed to fire the gun from 6.5 pounds to just over 5 pounds. I have well over 2000 rounds with the Apex trigger at this point, and despite installing it myself (I’m not known for my mechanical inclination), I’ve had no hiccups and no issues with ammunition malfunctions due to the striker not having enough force to ignite the primer.

The stock sights on the Shield are the common three white dot variety, and I’ve found that style of sight just doesn’t work for my eyesight. My eyes tend to get confused and dart between the front and rear dots, and in addition to this, the stock sights were not easy to see at night or in low light. To improve the sight picture, and my ability to fire the gun accurately, I swapped out the stock sights for a set of Trijicon HD night sights, and I’m very pleased with the results. The front sight is very easy to see in daylight, and the tritium-powered night sights at the rear stay unnoticed and out of the way until they’re needed. While I run fiber-optic sights on my competition guns, I prefer the bright red dot/night sight combination of the HD sights for everyday use on a carry gun.

The night sights are a good upgrade, but I also prefer to have a laser and flashlight on my gun for low-light situations. A weapon-mounted light is never a substitute for a handheld flashlight, but a light on your gun allows you to have both hands on your gun for more accuracy. It also allows for use of one hand to open doors and do similar actions while keeping a light on what’s in front of the muzzle of your gun. There are many light/laser options out there for the Shield, and the one I settled on was the Streamlight TRL-6. With 100 lumens, it’s bright enough to light up a room and has a red laser that lets me see where my rounds would land at night time or in low-light.

I’m completely sold on the benefits of a laser sight on a defensive pistol. They are not a substitute for the front and rear sights, but they allow you to make shots from awkward shooting positions and in low-light that are not possible to do with conventional notch and post sights.

Adding a light and laser to your gun means very little if you don’t have your gun with you when you need it most, and finding the right holster is essential to getting in the habit of carrying it. I prefer hybrid inside the waistband holsters (IWB) because I’ve found they work best for how I dress and how I am built. I lived in Arizona for many years and now I live in Florida, so wearing a heavy cover garment for concealment would make me stick out like a sore thumb. IWB holsters work particularly well in such locales because they conceal the pistol more than outside the waistband holsters do, and while you may need to buy your pants an inch or two bigger than usual, I find that a lighter, more casual appearance while I’m out and about is worth the tradeoff. I carry my Shield at the traditional 3-4 o’clock on my strong side rather than at the appendix position because it works better for me. I know a lot of people are fans of appendix carry, but I just do not have a body type that works well with appendix carry for extended periods of time.

I started out carrying the Shield in a Crossbreed Minituck holster, and then I switched to a Comp-Tac Merc holster to accommodate the light and laser. While I like Crossbreed holsters quite a lot and own them for other guns, I really like the range of adjustability and low-profile clips on the Comp-tac holster, and the compact size of the Merc works well with the compact size of the Shield.

The advantages of the Shield are that I can carry it pretty much anywhere, and with its small size and light weight, there’s really no reason for me not to carry it. The upgraded sights and trigger make it a very accurate gun for its size, and the light and laser give me an edge when darkness falls or the lights go out.

However, the things that make the Shield easy to carry, small size, and light weight also mean that the Shield handles recoil with less aplomb that larger guns in 9mm. As you can see in the photo, the muzzle flip for this gun is quite pronounced, but I’ve progressed in my shooting ability to the point where I can keep the flip under control and deliver any follow-up shots quickly and accurately. Practicing has made such a difference in my ability to handle recoil. The shorter barrel and slide also make for a shorter sight radius, but I’ve found that I can get multiple, repeatable hits on torso-sized target at 50 yards with this pistol, so that’s not much of a problem.

The Shield’s smaller size also means it carries fewer rounds than larger 9mm pistols. With only seven rounds in the standard 9mm magazine, the Shield needs all the ammo capacity it can get. I consider the extended eight round magazine for the Shield to be the standard magazine for the gun, not only because it holds more rounds than the seven round magazine but also because it allows me to get a better, firmer grip on the gun. I’ve upgraded the eight round magazines with “Plan B” baseplates from Paul Carlson to improve the reliability of the eight-round magazines and give me a fuller, more secure grip.

I’m a big believer in training, practicing, and competing in shooting matches with your carry gear. I’ve shot the Shield in IDPA matches in the Compact Carry Division (CCP), and it performed well with no issues from the gear I use. I’ve also used the Shield in several pistol training classes, and the only issue I ran into using it in a day-long class is that I had to reload more often than other students using higher-capacity pistols.

The bottom line for me when it comes to a personal defensive firearm is that it should be a gun you can carry every day, and that’s where the Shield really shines, especially with the upgrades I’ve mentioned. There are larger pistols out there that offer greater ammo capacity, but they come with the tradeoff of being thicker, heavier and more awkward to carry. I’m not sure that I’d recommend the Shield as a first time gun for new gun owners. The small size that makes it easy to carry also means you need to pay more attention to controlling recoil than with larger, heavier guns. However, because I’ve trained with the Shield and shot it in competition, I know how we perform together, and I have confidence that I can rely on it (and myself) to protect what matters most to me, which is the reason I started to carry a pistol in the first place.

The journey towards a comfortable, accurate concealed carry pistol has ended for the foreseeable future. I’m completely satisfied with how my Shield is now set up for concealed carry, how it performs, and now I can move on to other things that will help protect my family.

]]>http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/defending-life-shield/feed/12Becoming a Practical Riflemanhttp://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/becoming-practical-rifleman/
http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/becoming-practical-rifleman/#respondThu, 20 Oct 2016 21:41:23 +0000http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/?p=5432A rifle is only as good as the man who carries it. As a follow-up to last week’s post on …

]]>A rifle is only as good as the man who carries it. As a follow-up to last week’s post on rethinking the scout rifle, today I’m taking a look at a few of the key skills necessary to become a well-rounded rifle shooter. Watch the video below for details, or keep scrolling for the transcript.

Video transcript:

On May 19, 1984, two helicopters carrying Alaska State Troopers embarked on a manhunt in the wilderness near the remote town of Manley Hot Springs. Their target was Michael Allen Silka, an outsider suspected of the recent murders of six nearby residents. When one of the helicopters descended in front of Silka’s position near a river bank, he was ready for them. He moved toward the hovering chopper and fired a round from his Ruger No. 1 single shot rifle. The .30-06 bullet narrowly missed the troopers and passed through the roof of the chopper. Immediately, two of the troopers answered with bursts of fire from their M16A1s, but none of their bullets found the target. Silka fired a second shot, which instantly killed Trooper Troy Duncan and injured Captain Don Lawrence. At the same time, Trooper Jeff Hall fired another burst, hitting Silka with eight rounds and killing him. According to Hall, the entire exchange lasted about two seconds. [A more detailed account of this encounter can be found in this article written by Jeff Hall himself]

This story gives us two examples of how skill with a rifle matters a lot more than the rifle itself. Michael Silka was a deranged lunatic but he was also a very skilled marksman. Two rounds in two seconds on a moving target with a single shot rifle requires some serious ability. Fortunately, Jeff Hall also had some serious ability, including extensive and recent experience with shooting from moving helicopters, otherwise that encounter may have gone a lot worse for the troopers. Whether you have a state of the art combat rifle or a simple deer rifle, it’s the ability of the rifleman that determines how useful that tool is.

Last week, we looked at general purpose rifles like scout rifles and other handy, lightweight bolt actions that are often called practical rifles. These are rifles that can be used for a variety of different types of hunting, they can be easily carried for long periods of time, and they can even be used for self-defense from human attackers if necessary. They are legal in all 50 states and don’t tend to draw the kind of negative attention that semi-autos do in a lot of places. Just… don’t take one with you to get coffee.

Learning to run these kinds of rifles to their full potential is becoming kind of a lost art. Most of the rifle training and competition shooting you’ll find is geared toward long range precision with large, heavy rifles or close quarters work with semi-automatic carbines. The most basic marksmanship fundamentals like trigger control and sight alignment and breathing, that’s stuff you can still learn in a lot of places, so that’s not really what I’m getting into today. I’m looking at the skills required to run a quick-handling bolt action or lever action with speed and practical accuracy at extreme close range out to about three or four hundred yards. If you work on those skills, you will quickly discover what a practical rifle is capable of, and you’ll also start to get a better idea of what kind of hardware is going to work best for what you plan to use the rifle for.

Starting at close range the big skill to master is the snapshot. From a carrying position or ready position, we want to be able to quickly bring the rifle up on target and guarantee a solid first hit. A good snapshot is one of the skills that Jeff Cooper believed was an indication of a competent rifleman. His standard has you starting at a high ready with the butt of the rifle at hip level. From that position, if you can consistently hit a 4 inch circle at 25 yards in 1.5 seconds or a 10 inch circle at 50 yards in the same amount of time, you’ve got a pretty good snapshot.

The first shot is always the most important, especially when you’ve got to manually cycle the bolt. You’re not going to be doing any true rapid fire with a bolt action, but it’s possible to get follow up shots a lot quicker than most people think. One way to work on this is to run some simple handgun-style exercises at close range like maybe a 10 yard failure drill — two body shots and a head shot. You’ll get a lot of practice running the bolt really quickly, which in itself isn’t necessarily all that difficult, but it tends to reveal some weaknesses in certain bolt action designs. A lot of modern bolt actions do not respond well to being run really hard and that is one of the things that separates a rugged practical rifle from a more casual hunting rifle.

The Tikka T3x has an exceptionally smooth action, making it conducive to reliable rapid bolt manipulations.

Doing these kinds of drills, you’ll also find out pretty quickly how close you can get to the target before your scope starts to slow you down because you can’t find the target through the glass as quickly as you can bring the rifle up to your eye. A variable magnification scope that goes down to a true one power is ideal, but you can still be pretty quick with a little magnification like a 1.5 power. Fortunately, we’re seeing a lot more low power variable scopes on the market lately, and the prices are continually dropping. The 3-9 and 2-10 power optics still seem to be the most popular, and those have their place, but I think inside of about 40 yards, they’re going to slow you down.

Shooting at 100 yards and beyond, we get into the different shooting positions and the use of the loop sling. You might be familiar with the military loop sling and shooting from the prone or sitting or kneeling positions, but being able to actually get into those positions in a hurry is the real challenge. For a practical rifle, you can’t really use a traditional military loop sling, it’s just too slow to put on. You pretty much have to use a three-point Ching Sling, or something like a Rhodesian Sling that you can get into while you’re moving into position.

If you have a range where you can set it up, Cooper’s Rifle Ten drill is a good test of your ability to take advantage of the various shooting positions using the sling for support. Set up an IDPA target at 300 yards. When the timer starts, dive into any position you want and fire two rounds, then run to 275 and fire two more, run to 250 and fire two more. Run to 225 and here you can’t go to prone — fire two rounds from offhand or sitting or kneeling, and then your last two rounds are at 200 yards where you have to take the shots from offhand.

Any hits in the center circle are 5 points, in the down one zone, you get 4 points, and all other hits are 2 points. So, ten rounds total, 50 points possible. Cooper considered a good score to be 40 or better with at least 5 center hits and a time under two minutes.

Despite what the clever editing from last week’s video, might suggest, I am a mediocre rifle shooter at best. I can do the Rifle Ten drill under two minutes and I can score over 40 points, I just can’t do both on the same run. So, I still need some work. I like this test, though, because it’s really physical. It’s not just a test of marksmanship, but how well your marksmanship holds up when you add some exertion.

The other major skill to master is simply rifle manipulations — running the bolt quickly and smoothly, keeping the ammo topped off or switching magazines, and manipulating the safety. Fortunately, you get plenty of practice doing that stuff while you’re working on the other skills, so improvement should come naturally. If you’re solid with overall rifle handling, and you’ve got a good snapshot, and you’re quick with the sling and the different shooting positions, that’s a pretty good foundation of practical rifle skills.

Now, I said training for practical rifle skills is tough to find, but it’s not impossible. Randy Cain, who I mentioned last week does the Practical Rifle class at least once a year and he’s really the go-to guy for this stuff. Gunsite Academy also has their 270 Rifle class that covers a lot of the same skills.

If neither of those are practical for you and you still want some basic formal rifle training, I’d recommend checking out a Project Appleseed rifle clinic. They will teach you the fundamentals of rifle shooting, including how to use a loop sling and all of the basic shooting positions. These clinics are held all over the country and they’re very affordable, and you’re probably not going to find a better deal. Now, it’s not a practical rifle class like what I talked about today. Most Appleseeds are actually set up for you to use a semi-automatic .22, but you can use a bolt action if you want a real challenge, and either way, it’s a great way to sharpen your rifle skills before you move into some of the stuff I talked about earlier.

If you can’t make it out to an Appleseed, at the very least, go read The Art of the Rifle by Jeff Cooper. If that doesn’t motivate you to get out there and actually learn to shoot your rifle better, then you might need a new hobby.

]]>http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/becoming-practical-rifleman/feed/0Rethinking the Scout Rifle… Againhttp://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/rethinking-scout-rifle/
http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/rethinking-scout-rifle/#commentsThu, 13 Oct 2016 23:08:18 +0000http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/?p=5423And now for something completely different. For the next couple of weeks, I’m taking a break from the normal self-defense …

]]>And now for something completely different. For the next couple of weeks, I’m taking a break from the normal self-defense oriented topics (although there is an element of that here) to revisit a subject that’s an old favorite of mine: scout rifles. To be honest, I’ve never felt any particular need to own or build a “proper” scout rifle, but I am very much a fan of the spirit of the scout rifle concept. I really enjoy working with lightweight, handy bolt action and lever action rifles, especially when that means getting them off the bench and into the kind of field conditions that they were originally intended for. There’s certainly nothing wrong with bench rest shooting or long range precision rifle shooting, but I’ve never found much use for those pursuits beyond pure sport. However, the compact bolt action as a potential answer to the search for a general purpose practical rifle is an idea I can get behind. Details in the video with transcript following.

Full transcript below:

This is a Tikka T3x Lite Compact. It’s chambered in .308 Winchester and feeds from detachable magazines. With a Leupold VX-R Patrol scope and a Wilderness Tactical Rhodesian Sling, it weighs just 7.5 pounds loaded. This is not a scout rifle. Even though it’s a handy, lightweight, general purpose rifle, it’s missing a few of the key criteria that define a true Scout rifle. But is that such a bad thing?

Jeff Cooper’s Scout rifle concept is more popular now than it’s ever been. In the last few years, there has been a lot of discussion about scout rifles, and most of that has revolved around how we define the scout and whether the scout really is the ideal general purpose rifle. I even wrote an article along those lines myself a couple of years ago.

But instead of getting all wrapped up in critiquing and defining the Scout rifle, what if we just borrowed the best of Cooper’s ideas and used them as a starting point to put together rifles that worked for whatever our needs happen to be?

For example, a lot of people will tell you that a Scout rifle has to have ghost ring style backup iron sights, and there are some pretty compelling reasons to pursue that option. Maybe you’re out somewhere and you drop the rifle and damage the scope, or a screw comes loose and you lose your zero. If you have quick detach rings, you can just remove the scope right there and use your iron sights for the rest of the trip.

But if you decide that’s a feature you have to have, you are going to be limited to just a handful of bolt actions that come from the factory with ghost ring sights. You can have a gunsmith add iron sights to a rifle that doesn’t come with them, but that typically costs several hundred dollars. On top of that, depending on how the rear sight is installed, you might not be left with many options for where you can install a scope.

What if, instead of iron sights, you spent that money on a compact red dot optic that you carry in your backpack? If anything goes wrong with your primary scope, you just pop it off, stick the red dot on there, and you’re ready to go again with an optic that’s superior to iron sights in almost every way and it doesn’t require any costly modifications to your rifle. That solution might not work for everybody, but it’s just one example of how setting aside that preoccupation with the scout definition might allow us to consider some practical options that we would have otherwise been forced to dismiss.

There is nothing new about taking a more pragmatic approach to setting up a general purpose rifle, even among people who were once students and colleagues of Jeff Cooper himself. The scout rifle is closely related to a broader classification that some people refer to as “practical rifles”. Unlike the scout rifle, there is no official definition of the practical rifle, and I couldn’t tell you who coined the term for this specific application. But today, it is closely associated with the shooting instructor and former Gunsite staff member Randy Cain.

Randy describes the practical rifle as light and quick-handling and useful at arms reach out to 3 or 400 yards. They are usually bolt actions but can also be lever actions. They can be chambered in just about any rifle cartridge depending on the intended use, but the default choice is .308 Winchester. The preferred optics are low power variable scopes like a 1-4 or 1-6 power, or they might have non-magnified red dot sights, or iron sights.

The practical rifle is essentially the humble traditional deer rifle with special attention paid to a couple of key features to make it a slightly more flexible general purpose tool.

I should probably clarify what I mean by “general purpose” because this is another topic that comes up all the time with the Scout rifles — what “general purposes” are they actually good for besides hunting?

Well, there’s also pest control, or depending on where you live, protection from dangerous animals. The prepper community has also really embraced the idea of a low maintenance, manually operated general purpose rifle. I don’t want to speculate too much about politics or potential changes in firearm laws and I’m not going to ask you to envision some kind of post-apocalyptic Red Dawn scenario. I’ll just say this: a practical rifle can travel with you in places where an AR-15 or other semi-automatic rifle is not legal or where it might draw unwanted attention. I would not want to rely on a bolt-action rifle for home defense, but if that’s what you have available, they can be very effective for personal protection, even at close range if you have practiced that skill.

Short range engagement is one of the skills Randy Cain teaches in his Practical Rifle class. I had a chance to take this course a couple of years ago, and it was really eye-opening to learn what a quick-handling bolt gun is really capable of when you try to run it through the kind of exercises that are normally reserved for a semi-auto carbine.

And that brings me to another aspect of these discussions about scout rifles that I think demonstrates how a lot of people are completely missing the point. It’s uncommon to hear anyone talk about actually building skills with a scout rifle. It’s as if the physical characteristics of a rifle and preparing to use that rifle for any real world application are two completely separate conversations.

But obviously, those two issues are very closely related. We can guess what a particular rifle or accessory might be good for but that has limited value if we aren’t getting out there and using them. And to use them properly, we need some marksmanship and rifle handling skills — the things that make up what you might call “riflecraft.” So that is what we’re going to talk about next time.